The Woman in the Window

I was fascinated by the way the tragic protagonist uses “self-gaslighting” as a means of survival.

Anna Fox has suffered unimaginable tragedy, so she imagines it away. I felt her pain and isolation as well as her terror at discovering her neighbors have a horrifying secret.

I especially enjoy a suspense novel that moves at a pace between breathtaking and reflective.

Every so often, I fancy a good thriller with a surprise ending, and this certainly fitted the bill. Intrigued by the concept of an agoraphobic psychologist, I read the book at two sittings, the second one far into the night.

I loved it because the intelligence in the prose elevated it from its genre—such as the scene when Anna, the psychologist, racks her brain to identify which Chopin nocturne is playing while she’s on hold, when seeking information about a neighbour she suspects of killing his wife!

With a nod to Hitchcock’s movie, Rear Window, this gothic centers on Dr. Anna Fox who’s trapped in her New York city house not by a broken leg but by crippling agoraphobia caused by a traumatic event. In this lonely house, the absence of Anna’s husband and daughter is a presence that keeps her riveted to her window.

A page turner with a tightly paced plot and crisp, smart dialogue. 

This book is a dark study of chronic agoraphobia brought on by guilt, tragedy, and loss.

Medicated by alcohol and prescription drugs Anna’s only real links with the outside world are via her computer screen and the view from her window. As is so often the case for damaged women the world doubts her sanity and so, at times, does she. When she witnesses a terrible crime Finn traps us inside Anna’s head and forces us to share every shred of her fear, frustration, and doubt as she battles her demons and fights to be believed.

I was with her… show more.

A modern version of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, this book is a twisty psychological thriller about Anna, an alcoholic recluse who never leaves her home.

She spends her time drinking alone, watching old movies, and spying on her neighbors, paying particular interest to the new family that just moved across the way.

What’s fun about this book is trying to decipher what’s reality and what’s in Anna’s head as she stumbles down the rabbit hole, certain the neighbor across the street has killed his wife but unable to provide any proof.

Is the new neighbor really a murderer or… show more.

This is one of those stories that feels as familiar as it does original. A. J. Finn moves the reader through a tight timeframe, where Anna Fox questions her neighbors, herself, and reality. With each glance out of the window, she has another opportunity to discover something or shatter what she thought to be the truth. Personally, I didn’t try to figure out the ending. I just let Anna tell me her story. I felt it was easy to do, as we are so deep in her mind. If you’re able to do that, you may find yourself questioning things… show more.

This is a beauty of a page turner about an agoraphobic who drinks bottles of wine, overindulges in her prescribed pill allotment, and who comes to think that she witnesses a murder while looking through her camera lens into the home of the family next door. But will anyone believe her based on her current mind altering habits? Finn is to be commended for her obvious research into agoraphobia. This brings a realism that is both necessary and intriguing. On the surface, one might think this is a re-do of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, but Finn's story is quite… show more.